“He hath made Him to be sin for us … that we might be made the righteousness of God…”

The modern view of the death of Jesus – is that He died for our sins out of sympathy.

The New Testament view – is that He bore our sin not by sympathy, but by identification. He was made to be sin! Our sins are removed because of the death of Jesus, and the explanation of His death is His obedience to His Father, not His sympathy with us! We are acceptable with God not because ‘we’ have obeyed, or because ‘we’ have promised to give up things – but because of the death of Christ, and in no other way.

We say – that Jesus Christ came to reveal the Fatherhood of God, the loving-kind ness of God;

The New Testament says – He came to bear away the sin of the world. The revelation of His Father is to those to whom He has been introduced as Saviour. Jesus Christ never spoke of Himself to the world as one Who revealed the Father, but as a stumbling block (see John 15:22- 24). John 14:9 was spoken to His disciples.

That – Christ died for me, therefore I go scot free – is never taught in the New Testament.

What is taught in the New Testament – is that “He died for all” (not – He died my death), and that by identification with His death I can be freed from sin, and have imparted to me His very righteousness.

The substitution taught in the New Testament is twofold: “He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

It is not Christ for me unless I am determined to have Christ formed ‘in’ me.

Oswald Chambers

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